


It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Imported, LiveJournal, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, PG-13 (language)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4226562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's clear that whatever's going on in Jim's mind is the same thing that makes the kid so reckless the rest of the time-- like if he comes close enough to death on his own terms, he'll be far enough away from whatever he thinks his chasing him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Running

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old LJ fic that has a missing 3rd chapter I probably won't finish, but I did want to bring it over for folks who wanted to read it. Apologies for its unfinished state.

1 of 3 in "It's a Marathon, not a Sprint," ch. 2 "[Last Hurdle](http://blcwriter.livejournal.com/8454.html)," and to be posted ch. 3 "Finish Line."  Please note rating will chance to NC-17 in ch. 3

It's the night before midterms their first semester when Jim gets up around two in the morning and dresses, disappearing from the room so quickly that Bones barely registers it until the door snicks.

_Stupid fool.  Spends hours re-reading notes and now he's off for a fuck or a brawl because he can't sleep.  If we could just harness his energy we could forget about solar panels-- and we could sell the excess to ice planets and thaw them right out._

__Jim Kirk and his own special craziness can wait, Bones decides.  He's tired and he's got midterms and he just doesn't have time for Jim's shit.

\--

He hears the door click shut softly at four in the morning and wakes again.  He's a doctor, not a heavy sleeper-- too many calls in the middle of the night mean he's always ready to wake up and go when he's needed.  Still, he appreciates the fact that Jim's always quiet when he comes and goes at all hours--  once Bones has assured himself that it's Jim, he usually falls back asleep right away.  Tonight he hears a rustle that's Jim coming back into the room and the smell of his sweat-- it's a damned small room.

Missing, though, is the musk of sex or metallic odor of blood, two smells he knows as well as anything else about Jim.  Just sweat.  There's the soft _thunk_ of shoes and the slither of clothes before bare feet pad off to the bathroom and the hum of the refresher runs before Jim slips back into bed.

Bones is curious, but not enough to ask what the hell Jim's been doing, so he goes back to sleep.

\--

His instinct is right in that Jim's not bloody or bruised the next morning, so he doesn't mention Jim's midnight disappearance and utters a brusque "thanks, you too" when Jim wishes him luck on his tests.  His roommate is the most ill-mannered bastard most of the time-- until he goes and wishes people good luck and gives credit where credit is due on projects he has to work on with others.  Bones has seen it in those few Academy-mandated courses they've shared, and even as he's sure Jim pulled most of the weight since he's anything but lazy about coursework, he pumps up his partners in front of the profs.

\--

At finals, Jim does the same thing that he did at midterms-- slips out in the middle of the night, comes back two hours later smelling of simple sweat, showers and goes back to sleep.  He's quiet each time and if Bones wasn't curious he'd go back to sleep.  But the last night of Jim's finals after Bones is already done, the kid does it again.

Bones' curiosity has been burning higher and higher, so this time he's ready and slips out from under his covers as soon as the door snicks shut.  He's already dressed and shoves on his shoes before setting out to follow his roommate.  He set Jim's comm to broadcast to his so he could follow the kid to whereever he goes without having to shadow Jim and wonder where he is-- turns out he's at the Academy's track. 

_Jim's not a runner.  He works out at the gym and wrestles and swims, all those long lean muscles of his.  He's never once mentioned running as part of his workout._

__He goes anyway, taking his time and making sure he goes in the entrance that comes out right next to the bleachers so he can duck in and watch while he waits to see what the hell Jim is doing-- then shuts off his comm so there's no way in hell Jim can know he's there.

He feels kind of creepy, following Jim, but he's a little bit worried, too.  There are some things Jim just won't talk about, Iowa first and foremost.  And he knows the kids got a reckless streak as wide as the Milky Way-- a lot of that swagger is clearly-- to Bones-- false bravado, but he can't dig underneath that when Jim just won't talk about things and so far there's been no real crack in his armor like nightmares or any outward signs of depression. 

These midnight disappearances are his first possible clue to what's underneath and he's found that he _needs_ to know more about Jim than he's needed to know anyone else, even his ex-wife.  As if the fact that he's accepted Jim's nickname for him so much that he calls himself that in his head-- because somehow Jim's bestowing him with a new name lets McCoy escape the way his ex-wife called him Leonard and the way the hospital staff and higher-ups called him McCoy when they were disappointed by the way he'd show up on time for work but scruffy and only recently sober.  That nickname somehow meant a fresh start.  He's been staving off the other, deeper whys of this need to know Jim, but the fact is it's still there and Bones is a man who observes things and finds out the causes-- he's a doctor, goddamnit, not a disinterested lout, and it's not just his own curiosity about why the kid has such an effect on his that pushes him here to the track tonight.

So he ducks under the bleachers, looking for Jim on the track, which is only lit by the perimeter lights on the sidewalks outside.  It's totally silent out anyway-- Bones didn't meet anyone on his walk over here-- he might as well be the last man on Earth.  As he looks straight across, though, Jim flashes by.

_So fast._

__Fascinated, Bones watches, taking a seat half under the bleachers, half on the shadowy walkway.

_What the hell is he doing?_

__His roommate is running-- faster than he's ever seen anyone running.  No one on the Academy track team could touch him-- hell, Bones loves to watch the intergalactic Olympics and he bet that if he got out a stopwatch, Jim would come close or beat those times too.  He's running to put that old cliche to shame-- even the wind couldn't touch Jim, he's running so fast.

And the kid doesn't stop.  He's not red with exertion.  He's not panting like he's about to collapse.  He just keeps going.  Bones watches as his roommate and friend keeps up this incredible speed lap after lap, never slowing.  It's a thing of incredible beauty, the way Jim runs-- he's perfectly balanced, his feet striking the track in the way the best runners do, the balls of his feet barely hitting the ground before he's in the air again.  Like the best runners, he's pure efficiency, too.  No exaggerated pumping of arms, no leaning too far into his stride-- just even, upright, graceful and fast.  Jim's bare-chested, wearing only the most skimpy of runner's shorts, not even sneakers or racing flats-- just him and his skin and the track and the air and his running.  __

_So incredibly fast._

__Jim's running as if at any moment he might find that last bit of speed that would let him fly away rather than still be tethered to Earth.

_Oh._

__Up to this point, Bones has been distracted by the perpetual motion of Jim's running, the work of his arms and legs, the smoothness of it all.  Now, he looks at his face and he sees it, even as he still doesn't understand the reason for it.

Most really excellent runners, the ones most mere humans marvel at, have this look on their face that's almost placid-- the rhythm of their stride and the endorphins and effort makes them calm.  He's heard once or twice from some people that it's almost like some mystical state, that counting your strides and your breath as you run is all you become as the laps flash by, and that everything else falls away.  He's also heard that when the best are running like that, marathons and other long distance races, you don't feel any pain until it's all over because your adrenaline is pumping so hard.

Jim though-- he's not relaxed.  He doesn't look like he's in some mystical state.  He looks like he's afraid and in incredible pain and as though if he doesn't keep running he'll die.  Bones doesn't quite get how he knows this from what to anyone else would just look like a rictus of tension, but somehow he gets it.  There's no sign of Jim's swagger or cockiness, none of his smirks or winking or more genuine laughter and smiles when he's ragging the shit out of Bones and Bones gives back as good as he's got.  It's just so many layers and iterations of _pain_ that there's no way that one word can describe it-- and Bones realizes that this is the most pure expression of what makes Jim seek out fights and sex and so much speed that the Academy flight and hovercar instructors have stopped keeping track of who's got the speed record because it's always Jim whenever he takes a vehicle out.

It makes his skin crawl and his stomach flop and his heart tighten and his stomach turn over again and before he knows it his own pulse is hammering and he's sweating almost as much as Jim is because he can see the kid's got _runnels_ of sweat pouring from him when he passes in front of Bones.  He's never seen such beautiful determination in his life, and it scares the shit out of him.

He wants to do nothing more than tackle Jim, hold him down, make him tell Bones _what the hell_ he's running from, because it's clear that he's running from something.  It's clear that whatever's going on in Jim's mind is the same thing that makes the kid so reckless the rest of the time-- like if he comes close enough to death on his own terms, he'll be far enough away from whatever he thinks his chasing him.  And yet Bones does nothing, because this, this _fleeing_ Jim's doing-- it's so incredibly private that it's an obscene invasion of Jim's space for Bones to even be here.  And he knows Jim won't collapse because by this time, he knows Jim's routine-- he never goes out for more than two hours, and he always gets up for finals on time, and he always aces every single damned one.

It makes him sick to leave his friend, but it makes him sick to know he's just betrayed Jim's trust in some way.  He could have just asked Jim where he went.  Hell, the kid might even have answered him, though he just would have said "Running, got some energy to burn."  If he'd said that, Bones would probably have taken it at face value.  But he didn't ask, and he didn't have to get up and follow his roommate to the track and he shouldn't ever have.  Resignedly and with his heart half-broken for not being able to _fix_ whatever the hell's going on with his roommate, Bones gets up and slips out of the track in the shadows and heads back to the room

When he comes back to the room, he eradicates any sign that he's been anything other than asleep the whole time.  Jim's the kind of guy who notices when things are out of physical place, like he's looking for clues of some kind of invasion-- it's a good Captain-y kind of skill since espionage and sabotage are not uncommon and being able to tell that a lamp is one inch out of place could mean the difference between finding a bomb or a bug and just ... not.  Once, Bones borrowed one of Jim's data pads because he'd left his extra one at the hospital-- he hadn't snooped at Jim's stuff of course, and he'd beamed himself the data when he was done, putting the PADD back just where he'd taken it.  He thought.  "Did you touch the things on my desk?" Jim'd said when he came in the door.  He was still across the room in the doorway when he noticed it and Bones had flushed even though he had nothing to be embarrassed about. 

"Yeah," he'd said.  "Left my PADD at the hospital, needed to borrow yours."  His roommate had relaxed-- marginally-- then told him gruffly to just ask first if he needed something.  Bones noticed thereafter than whenever Jim came back to the room and was sober (and even sometimes when he was drunk) he took a few seconds to scan the room before entering.  It was an almost imperceptible pause to detect any invasion, one he took every time-- so now, Bones carefully puts his shoes back where he put them before and shoves the clothes he'd been wearing under the covers into his bureau, sliding back into bed and drawing the covers back over himself.  A half hour later, Bones still lies awake, staring at the ceiling and trying to keep his breaths even as he replays what he saw in his mind.  At two hours flat, Jim comes back to the room and follows his routine-- undress, shower, go back to bed.

Bones barely sleeps, listening to his roommate breathe the deep even cadence of sleep, and pretends to wake after Jim rolls out of bed and goes for another shower.  "You're up early," Jim says when he comes back in, clad in a towel and nothing more.

"Got to go to the clinic at lunchtime," he says, which is true.  Jim doesn't comment, just keeps getting dressed and grabs his PADD to head out.

"Good luck today, kid," Bones says as Jim stands in the doorway.  Jim's mouth quirks in a half smile, says thanks quietly and is gone.  He doesn't look at all like the _child boy_ _man_ running from something Bones knows he won't fully comprehend even if Jim ever tells him-- instead he looks like confident Cadet Jim Kirk, the young man about to go kick the ass of his last test of the year.

As Bones falls back into the bed and stares up at the ceiling, he reflects on the compulsion to know the kid, his first acquaintance at Starfleet, his roommate, his friend, his something else he's not ready to name yet and accepts at least one thing he's been avoiding.

It's not about being a doctor, this compulsion to find out what's eating Jim and make it all better.  It's personal.  One of these days the kid's not going to be able to run anymore and Bones needs to be the one to catch him when his literal and figurative legs can't carry him any further away from what's chasing him.  It's not about Dr. McCoy and his general compulsion to fix, to heal, to make it all better, though he has no doubt that when Jim crashes he's going to crash _hard_ and his medical skills may be damned critical.  It'll be _Bones_ who's watching and waiting and holding his breath, waiting for that moment when he can drag Jim over the finish line and make sure his friend knows he's gotten there and doesn't have to run anymore.  



	2. The Last Hurdle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2nd of 3 intended chapters, but the 3rd is (long) unfinished. Apologies.

He runs and Bones catches him. It happens suddenly, and despite knowing Jim for almost four years now, when it happens, it's almost faster than light-- because Jim often comes that close in all the things that he does. When it comes, Bones has to move faster than he ever has in his life to find Jim after he bolts. They barely make it-- they both crash as Bones grabs at him, Jim's anguish and rage an almost insurmountable hurdle.

Not catching Jim isn't an option-- even if he'd never seen Jim fleeing from nothing Bones could see that first year he knew him, his "mere" friendship with Jim would compel it because as cofuckingdependent as it is, he needs Jim and Jim needs him. Jim's there, always there-- when Bones' Gram dies, the last person on Earth from his old life that Bones still cares about and who still cares about him, Jim takes four shifts off in a row despite Spock's complaint to let McCoy get rip-roaringly drunk and tell Jim every story he's ever had about Gram. He spends as much time with Bones as he needs to get drunk and sit in silence together while Bones says absolutely nothing about the patients he's lost, every damned time he loses someone-- he's done it ever since Jim found him back in their room at school getting completely obliterated when a stupid kid overdosed on recreational drugs and Bones couldn't pump his stomach and detox him fast enough. Jim lets him be his cantankerous self and never tries to change him-- just cheers him up if he can. It's no wonder he loves him, Jim's the first person who's let Bones decide who he is since his Gram, rather than push him to be more, different, better, whatever the fuck that means. 

It's that freedom from pressure that lets Bones excel again-- it makes him stop drinking so much (though it'll always be a bit more than he should, old habits dying hard and all that), makes him give a damn about research and makes him give more of a damn about his medical practice, the one thing he hadn't completely despaired of-- it all means something, and he's no longer frightened just because a brash kid from Iowa wants him around. God knows why he does, Bones won't question his luck. 

It's the bad news after a rescue mission, after they've been redirected to deal with a Orion distress call-- that's what sets Jim running again, after a short delay so he can get to someplace where he can run. The ship won't meet that need and he won't do it in front of his crew, even when he's about to go messily nuts. He's been running in private so long Bones is sure that he'll hold onto that edge until they reach planetside-- because the news isn't just bad-- it's horrific, the word making its way through the ship in an instant.

It's not fighting with the hostile evil brutes of the universe or space viruses that hurt Jim-- Bones knows that by now. Rips in the time-space continuum, singularities, black holes, exploding stars-- the dangers of mere astrophysics don't bother his friend and Captain at all. Even the loss of crew members and patients doesn't break open his core self, though he's griefstricken and blames himself while he visits surviving friends and family. It's none of those things that frightens or hurts Jim on the inside-- it's something else, something Bones only sees right before they're redirected to respond to that cursed distress call. 

They'd landed on an unmapped fringe planet only to find it was a Romulan dilithium mine, run with child slaves-- one of the times when each senior officer agreed Fuck Diplomatic Neutrality. They beamed kids aboard willy-nilly and Security shot slavers until they ran out of phasers and Scotty beamed down more weapons-- it took two days, but they cleaned the godsforsaken rock clean of every damned Romulan and beamed every child on the planet aboard, Jim making the most kills of all. The Security chief mumbled under his breath that he'd never seen anyone go berserk before, but Bones snapped at him so fiercely that the man was more afraid of Bones now than Jim-- just as Bones intended.

Everyone was three or four deep in small children, the older ones sleeping on the floors in the rec rooms and cargo bays while every crew member with a whit of medical training worked overtime to make sure the kids were cleaned up, fed, their wounds tended. Jim had been everywhere, cleaning and helping and talking and holding and playing with the kids, his mask of Good Captain Jim and Cheerful Bright Playmate intact-- but Bones looked and Jim's eyes were glittering crazy. He'd been overruled about taking kids into his quarters since the senior officers decreed they needed someplace to work privately, but when Bones dropped by to consult him on something, he walked in on Jim, dressing the slashes and bruises of one of the older kids who'd been among the more seriously injured. Two smaller kids played with Jim's deck of cards and one of his antique toy cars on the floor.

He'd turned his head to look at Bones and the flash of expression he saw before Jim put his Captain face on was the same one he'd seen at the track, that look of everything pain that Bones hadn't seen since-- and he knew then that this thing with the kids and the way this kid was beat up had to do with that fleeing he'd seen. Jim just inquired what Bones wanted, his expression daring his still-only-best-friend to remind him that they'd all "agreed" that Jim wouldn't take on this extra burden. Bones wouldn't take that dare if his life depended on it, so he simply stated his errand and left, coming back hours later with the medical supplies everyone had been using to take care of the kids. 

They dropped the kids off at the nearest Federation space station, assured by the Admiralty that a transport ship with refugee commission officers was on its way-- and Jim balked at leaving, wanting to oversee the safe transition of the kids. He'd actually argued with Admiral Barnett about sending someone else to deal with the distress call, then argued about leaving the station without a warship attending, citing the risk of Romulan retaliation. Barnett overrode him with firm sympathy, citing the station's "perfectly adequate weapons systems," and commending Jim's actions in rescuing the kids with no mention of the fact that the crew had disregarded neutrality-- child slavery went beyond that and the fact that the crew killed-- slaughtered annhilated dealt bloody justice-- every Romulan to free the kids likewise went unremarked-upon.

They went off, rescued the Orions from their battered ship, damaged by an uncharted and exploding star, then made their way back to the same space station, the main resupply source in the sector.

And the station-- it's gone when they make it back, the transport ship and refugee commissioners too. It's obliterated, masses of debris littering space with only a Romulan message beacon in its place. Retaliation, just as Jim said.

The whole ship is in shock-- they'd lived with those kids for a little over a week, quiet sad faces yielding to tentative laughter and smiles by the end of the trip and everyone was relieved that they'd done something personal to make the universe better. It made them feel even better than saving Earth-- there'd been no regrettable deaths this time. Every single bloody intentional death had been warranted. Even Bones had no regrets for the three men he'd killed when he was carrying some of the most wounded children into transporter range.

Jim's subspace conference with Barnett after this discovery is private, not even Spock allowed in the ready room-- but there's a lot of indecipherable shouting from Jim, and when he comes out he calmly and coolly instructs Sulu to plot a course for a nearby Terran farming colony for ship-wide shore leave. Bones doesn't think leave will alleviate all of the grief, but at least it will get them all off a ship that still echoes with small children's laughter.

Bones tries to get Jim to talk about it afterward and gets nowhere-- that armor was so firmly in place that it would take a photon torpedo to pierce it and no way would Bones take that risk. So he watches, waits and prays though he's a doctor and man of science, goddamnit, not some ooky religious nut-- but he still prays that Jim won't crack. 

Jim doesn't seem more grim or grieving than anyone else, Spock included-- he'd taken some of the youngest into his quarters and before long the kids were playing with Vulcan logic puzzles and laughing. But that glittering edge of crazy in Jim's eyes is still there, just barely under control. He knows the kid is going to to unleash it, that he's going run as soon as they hit planetside-- but the fact that he's held on for two weeks since it happened without anyone else becoming alarmed makes Bones think maybe Jim will be okay after he runs a bit. Bones just plans to follow to make sure. 

The first shift of crew members beams down, the second, third and fourth following every half hour until only the skeleton crew and senior officers are left and McCoy's on the bridge with their core, their little nuclear family-- Scotty and Spock, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov-- to decide who's taking leave in what order when Jim gets a transmission keyed only to him that Uhura sends to his ready room.

Two minutes later he comes out, that running expression on his face that Bones almost misses, Jim is in the lift so quickly. "Uhura," he snaps. "Who was that transmission from?"

The woman hesitates and Bones barks "As doctor I order you to give me that transmission." She hands him the earpiece and he listens-- only halfway. It's all that he needs-- he drops the earpiece to the floor and bolts. "Spock," he rasps. "You're Captain." The lift closes and he sprints to the transporter room when he reaches the right deck-- no more than three minutes, total.

"Beam me to wherever you just sent the Captain. Now."

Bones' thoughts reassemble just as his molecules do.

The oldest boy of the three he took in sent Jim a message wanting to know if Jim would adopt them.

\--

He's already gone from the field just outside the capital where they've sent the crew down in shifts, so Bones reconfigures his comm, running in the direction it tells him Jim's headed and wondering if he'll ever catch up. It's a small city-- everything right around is farm and uncultivated land and he knows Jim's going to just pick up speed with no real obstructions. Bones runs harder than he ever has in his life, panic at what will happen if he doesn't catch Jim speeding him faster than he ever thought possible. 

Bones has no idea how long he's been running when he catches sight of Jim not far ahead-- he feels a burst of speed come on even as his lungs burn and his heart starts beat its way out of his body. He bellows Jim's name and his friend flicks a glance over his shoulder, then keeps running, picking up even more speed.

My heart's going to give out and not just from running. Please, something, someone, anything, stop him long enough to let me get to him.

He doesn't care if it's an answered prayer when Jim trips on something in the fallow field they've been running across and goes down-- Bones puts on more speed, his breathing in time with pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease, reaching his friend just as Jim hauls himself up, ready to run again with this totally broken look on his face.

Bones throws himself at Jim, tackling him at the knees and hauling him under him until he can straddle Jim to keep him from getting up.

"Let me up," he spits, surging up as much as he can to punch Bones-- but the doctor's anticipated this and grabs Jim's wrists, shoving his arms down into the ground and pinning him even as Jim struggles. 

"No, Jim. Stop. Just stop running. Listen to me," Bones gasps, his chest heaving and heart pounding from this crazy chase of his crazy Captain and best friend and so much more to Bones than he's ever said. He pants in his friend's face and starts to talk quickly, knowing Jim needs to hear it all now because every damned second counts. "You don't have to run. It's okay. Jim, I don't know what all you're running from and you don't have to tell me but you don't have to run. It's not your fault, Jim, you did the best that you could. It's not your fault, do you hear me? I'll help you and I'm not letting go and I won't let anyone see or know or hear until you feel better."

Jim crumples. Body limp, blue eyes sharp with such pain that Bones feels like he's had a laser shot through his heart, Jim starts to cry, heaving, choking sobs that jolt Bones as he straddles and pins his friend to the ground.

He's not going to run anymore.

Bones moves, sitting in the soft dirt next to his friend and pulling him up into his arms.

Who knows how long they sit there as Jim shudders with sobs and Bones repeats a litany of things he hopes will lend comfort-- at some point Jim stops making these raw, guttural moans that Bones knows are at least ten years old, maybe even twenty, and that Jim's never let them out in the air before. Throughout, Bones holds his friend as tightly as possible while rocking so gently-- the way he saw Jim hold the smallest of "his" little roommates, one night when she had a nightmare. Bones had stopped by to drop off more nutritional drinks for these malnourished kids, only to see his Captain and friend cradle that girl like she was the most precious thing in the world.

"I've got you, I've got you," he murmurs, holding his Captain and ignoring the seeping damp of the soil underneath them and the darkening sky overhead. He's crooning "I've got you," and "not going anywhere" and "it's okay" until the words are more automatic than breathing when Jim finally speaks.

"They wanted me. Me," he whispers, his voice too raw from crying to be any louder. 

"I know, Jim. I know," Bones responds.

"I could have stopped it. I w-w-w-would have. Th-th-th-the only ones who w-w-w-wanted m-m-me and I left them," he moans, his teeth chattering and his body starting to tremble. 

"Stop, Jim, shh. They wanted you, yes, I'm sure they knew that with all of their hearts but they're not the only ones who want you and love you."

Jim whimpers, body trembling harder than ever. "N-n-n-no," he denies. "N-n-n-n-o-b-b-b-body else, and I l-l-l-l-left."

Bones curls him closer, holds him even more tightly, rocks him more firmly. "It's not true. It just isn't and you're wrong, Jim, just wrong. It wasn't your fault you had to leave, it just wasn't. And every damned person on that ship of ours loves you, everyone one of them loves you and needs you, you have a whole crew of children you need to take care of, goddamnit-- Spock's not you and none of the rest of us can do it like you do. You're the only one who can take care of our crew so well and you're not allowed to let this take you away from them. You're stronger than that, you can get past this, you can keep going, I know it."

Jim's burrowed himself into Bones by this point, his head under his chin and curled up more tightly than should be possible for a man who's as tall as Bones and not that might lighter. He manages it though, the way he feels so small on the inside making him the same on the outside-- his voice as he again responds to Bones' attempts to console him is smallest of all.

"I can't. I can't. I can't. If you knew. I can't. I just ... no. You don't know."

Jim's weeping brokenly again and Bones is crying harder than he ever has in his life as he holds his destroyed friend in the dark in a field in the middle of nowhere-- and thinking I don't know if I can fix him. He doesn't even have his standard med-kit, just his comm and his phaser, because somewhere on his run he's lost everything larger. He can't knock Jim out with a sedative, something he's starting to think he might need because if he doesn't stop crying so much he's going to get dehydrated or go into shock-- he can only hold and talk and try to break through Jim's disbelief.

"Jim, shh, listen Jim," he says, his own voice hoarse from how long he's been talking. "I don't need to know what happened before because I know who you are now, no matter what anyone else ever told you. They were wrong and I'm right and you have to believe me because I'm not just your doctor and best friend-- I love you, goddamnit, and so help me if you let this thing break you you'll kill me so you're not to do anything except listen to me and believe what I say."

Jim's breath hitches and chokes when Bones says he loves him, so he says it again and keeps repeating himself until finally-- finally-- Jim stops hiccuping and choking and the soaking-wet front of Bones' shirt doesn't become any wetter than it already is. They sit there in silence while insect noises fill the air and the night breeze rustles the trees until Bones decides Jim's breathing evenly enough to have calmed down so they can get going.

"Okay for now?" Bones asks, squeezing Jim just once more.

"Yeah." He doesn't sound sure at all, but at least he's not running. Bones can worry about the rest later on. For now, he'll concentrate on just getting them moving now that they're over this hurdle, the one where Jim's running never resolves anything because he's running alone. The finish line isn't in sight yet and Bones is a doctor, not a runner, goddamnit-- but he's pretty sure they're on the last lap and headed toward home.


End file.
